This Was a Real Thing: Harry Nilsson’s Popeye Demos

If you’re a fan of Harry Nilsson, Robert Altman, or Robin Williams, this is pretty cool:

There’s some interesting info in the YouTube description. I’m not sure where this info is from, but it seems legit:

“For Robert Altman’s 1980 film Popeye, he recruited Harry Nilsson to do the songs and Van Dyke Parks to do the film score. The songs were sung in the film by the characters, a la any musical, but the original demos of Harry singing them still exist.

Apparently Harry was not the clear cut choice to do the songs according to Altman, “Nobody wanted him at first except Robin Williams. Everyone said ‘You’ll get in trouble with him — he’ll get drunk; he won’t do it; he’s all washed up.’ As a matter of fact I said all of those things about Harry to Robin myself one day. Then I went home and thought about it and said to myself, ‘Jesus, that’s what some people are saying about me!’ So I called Harry Nilsson, because I had never met him in my life, and we got along terrifically.”